


The Child Inside

by closemyeyesandleap



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, F/F, Lena Luthor Needs a Hug, Lena's Childhood, Luthor family, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 23:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20379640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closemyeyesandleap/pseuds/closemyeyesandleap
Summary: In the months following the revelation of Supergirl's true identity, Lena falls deeper into isolation, science, and haunted memories of her past.





	The Child Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings for psychological/emotional abuse and neglect of a child, as well as for loss of a parent by a child. However, there is no physical or sexual abuse.  
Rated T for occasional language.

The month of June passed achingly slow for Lena.

Kara continued to text her, inviting her to game nights. At first, she would invent scheduling conflicts—late night meetings with potential collaborators, research gone overtime, fancy dinners with this or that charity.

After a while, though, she gave up the pretense. “I wish I could, but I’ve got an appointment!” became “I’m just not feeling it today, Kara,” became unanswered texts.

At first, Kara respected her wish for distance. As Lena’s responses grew more and more spread out, however, Lena began to receive a barrage of calls from Kara’s number.

She grudgingly showed up to a Fourth of July rooftop brunch, hoping that her presence would calm Kara’s incessant calling. Every time someone spoke to her, though, her answers were cold. Measured. Distant.

That day, Lena could hardly look at Kara without seeing her transform into Supergirl in her mind. The glasses dissolved in her vision, the elaborately-braided hair fell down, the relaxed stance became more confident and rigid… of course, then Lena would blink and Kara would once again be standing there, smiling at her.

She could barely stand it. Her rage bubbled beneath the surface, swelling in concert with the pain.

She half expected Kara to reveal herself. Surely, _surely_ now she would tell Lena the truth. 

But no such revelation came.

Instead, all she got from Kara were pained glances and words dripping with concern. 

“It’s depression,” she heard Kara whisper to Alex when the sisters thought that Lena was out of earshot.

Her blood boiled.

After the Fourth, Lena stopped answering Kara’s invites. Sometimes she would give a perfunctory response to Kara’s earnest inquiries about her mood. Other times, she just put the phone on silent as it rang and rang and buried herself in her research.

Yes, it was a lonely summer, but it was hardly her first. Looking out over the hazy heat of National City in early August, Lena’s mind wandered.

_She’s 10. She’s heading back to Luthor Manor for her first summer after her first year of boarding school. She sees the Manor emerging on the horizon and feels its size and depth coming ever closer to swallow her._

_The chauffeur helps her unpack. Nobody greets her. She’s hardly surprised. Father must be off on yet another business trip or investment venture, and she guessed Mother was more disappointed than pleased that she had returned._

_Lex is off at MIT for his first year. She has soaked up every story of his successes, his shiny new inventions, his plans to shape the university in his image. She doesn’t expect him to waste a day traveling to visit his kid sister, back from secondary school, so when he isn’t there to greet her either, she isn’t surprised._

_Lena spends the summer wandering the Manor, eating the food that the cook prepares for her morning, midday, and evening. She tries to lose herself in her projects, just like she used to do when Lex was home. _

_Soon her bedroom is overflowing with half-constructed robots and discarded formulas. The successes she brings carefully into her sitting room, organizing them on the coffee table as if it were a stage. _

_She should be happy, she thinks. All the time she was at boarding school, she had balked under the careful eye of the instructors and the petty conversations of the other first year girls who somehow thought that boys were the most fascinating subject in the world. Back then, she had yearned for space to think._

_But now, all she feels is loneliness. It follows her around the Manor. It sits with her as she eats pancakes and bananas for breakfast. It haunts the bathroom mirror as she brushes her teeth. It even sneaks through her bedroom window as she is inventing, clouding her vision until the device before her appears a vice, a curse. _

_Loneliness is her constant companion every day that summer, save for the one weekend when Lex visits. She rushes him into her sitting room, pulling him in front of the table with her proudest inventions._

_Lex surveys each one, an imperious look on his face. College has aged him, added an extra angle to his jaw where before there was softness. Lena feels butterflies in her stomach as he picks up a robot. _

_“Needs rewiring,” he says, almost tossing it aside. “What are they teaching you in that school?”_

_Okay, so the robot isn’t her finest invention. Her eyes perk up as she sees Lex move on to another device. They began to fade as he sorts wordlessly from one to the next. _

_“This one’s good,” he exclaims, his hand settling on her final invention._

_Her heart leaps, and for a second, she forgets it all._

Lena had always found fall in National City a bit of a farce. In Metropolis and at the Manor, orange and yellow and red leaves blowing about in crisp air announced the arrival of fall, not barely-there scarves in earthy colors and pumpkin-spice lattes like in National City.

It didn’t matter, however. Her work in human enhancements kept her busy and indoors. 

Her phone dinged, and she looked at the name. “Kara Danvers.”

“Near a medical breakthrough, sorry,” she typed back quickly. She knew that Kara didn’t believe her evasions. She knew that all of her once-friends thought she was deep in depression over Lex’s death. They had tried to stage half a dozen interventions, after all, showing up at her office at odd hours with games and food and words of affirmation.

Finally, Lena had pulled Kara aside and asked her to respect her need to grieve alone. In a way, she regretted not telling her to fuck off, but she didn’t need Supergirl as an enemy. Not now. Not when she was so close to rendering Supergirl, to rendering _Kara_ and her “super friends” hopelessly obsolete. 

Lena wasn’t stupid. She noticed the frequent fluttering outside of her window from the corner of her eye when she would turn to gaze out the window. She knew K—Supergirl made fly-by check-ups on her. She considered lining her windows and walls with trace amounts of lead. If she did so, however, the game would be up. Kara would know that she knew, and that Lena was avoiding her because of it. She may even begin to suspect that Lena had something up her sleeve.

So Lena kept up the charade.

Sure, she could be depressed Lena Luthor, needing time and space to heal after a terrible loss. She’d played many parts in her life. She could play that part as well. 

Lena managed to keep her attention on the science, on the experiments, into well into October. Halfway through, however, she received yet another text from Kara. Much to her chagrin, she makes the mistake of reading it. 

“I miss you, Lena. Anyway, just wanted to let you know that Nia and Brainy are throwing a Halloween party. It’s going to be great! Please come. You don’t even have to dress up (I will be dressing up, though.) It could lift your spirits. ☺”

Lena gritted her teeth. Hadn’t Kara assuming another identity been the root all this? Her friend was two faced, regardless of whether or not she was wearing a costume. 

Growing up, she’d never liked Halloween, not really. Darkness, ghosts, and people in masks scared her.

It was logical, she thought. A childhood spent wandering through the halls of Luthor Manor with an overactive imagination had produced many images of demons lurking in dark corners or possessed clowns just waiting for her to round the corner before pouncing and killing her.

Lena had never trick-or-treated, of course. The adjacent homes of the other wealthy families were too spread out on expansive properties to make for practical trick-or-treating, and Lionel and Lillian would never have dreamed of sending their children into the suburbs to beg for candy from common people like pathetic paupers.

Masks evoked that old fear well into her adolescence. 

She should have known the truth.

The worst masks are the ones worn every other day of the year, the ones with which enemies disguise themselves as friends.

That was a lesson she should have learned decades before.

_It’s fall and Lena’s fourteen. It’s the year that Lena learns what it feels like to be kissed, really kissed, by someone who makes her heart leap. It’s also the year that Lena learns that some masks are worn by smiling friends._

_When Marguerite, an auburn-haired Junior she’d seen but never gotten the chance to speak with before, kisses her, surreptitiously in a closet after their final class on a Friday in September, Lena feels like the moment lasts for years and for no time at all. She tastes the sweet, almost overpowering watermelon of Marguerite’s lip balm and marvels at how different this kiss is from her only other experience—a messy, wet kiss from a bumbling boy who kissed her as a dare._

_She sneaks away with Marguerite a few times to learn every millimeter of each other’s mouths. They make plans—grand plans for trips around Europe, like turn-of-the-century dames living out a hidden romance throughout Paris._

_September turns into October, and Lena won’t leave Marguerite’s side. She’s unable to resist a single request that Marguerite makes. Every word, every suggestion feels like warm honey coming from the other girl’s mouth. So when Marguerite tells her that her dad wants to invite Lena and her family on a trip to his country home and urges her to get Lionel to agree, Lena goes all in._

_She knows she’s always been Lionel’s favorite, the only one between her and Lex who can sometimes get Lionel to break away from his obsession with work and acquiring money and influence to pay a modicum of attention to the family. She goes home one weekend in early October and begs and pleads for Lionel and Lillian to accompany her and Marguerite to Marguerite’s family’s vacation home in the Adirondacks._

_Lillian refuses to come, but Lena’s pleading soon overcomes Lionel’s opposition, and he accompanies her.  
The two families spend a beautiful weekend in late October surrounded by the red and yellow hues of the mountain trees in fall, the girls playing in the lake as the adults are served whiskey and fancy cheeses by the two or three house staff._

_Watching the sunset on the second night from a raft in the lake, Marguerite by her side, Lena wonders if this is what happiness really feels like. _

_Lionel doesn’t talk much to Lena on the drive home. She’s nearly vibrating with joy, mixed with longing because she will have to wait a few days before seeing Marguerite again at their return to school. _

_Lena rushes up to Marguerite the second she gets to school, her heart bursting._

_Marguerite casts one look at her. “What do you want?” she asks coldly before turning away._

_Marguerite retreats to join a giggling group of older girls who are waiting for her a few yards away. With one last imperious look at Lena, she walks away._

_For the next week, Lena tries to talk to Marguerite. She implores her to tell her what happened, what she did wrong. Marguerite doesn’t explain. She simply ignores her—worst, she acts likes nothing they shared ever happened._

_When Lena arrives at Luthor Manor for Thanksgiving break, her heart is still broken._

_For the first time in what must be years, Lillian notices her emotional state. “Why, you look devastated, Lena,” she says before Lena even has the chance to greet her mother._

_Lena shrugs._

_“Let me guess, darling,” Lillian continues. “That girl you forced your father to visit with you has abandoned you.”_

_Lena can’t hide her surprise. Honestly, she doesn’t try. Her head shoots up, and she stares at her mother, fighting back tears._

_Lillian gives a small _humph_ of understanding. “It’s not surprising. You know she and her father cooked that all up to try to get your father to invest in her father’s cockamamie business venture?”_

_“No, she didn’t,” Lena whispers, shaking her head as if to cast her mother’s words from her ears. _

_Lillian just looks down at her, with something resembling pity strewn across her face. “Really, Lena. You’re hopelessly naïve. You have to know by now that there are some who will see you as an easy path to Luthor money.” _

_Lena grits her teeth, her mother’s accusation stinging. Beneath the sting, the truth swirled. She should’ve known. Nobody’s ever made a point of seeking her out just for her friendship—or her love. She is always “that Luthor girl” or “the adopted daughter of the Luthor empire” or, to the servants, “Miss Lena.”_

_She is always both defined and excluded by the Luthor name._

_She clenches her fists._

_She’ll never be taken for such a fool again._

Lena wouldn’t let herself be taken for a fool that Halloween, either. Even so, she had to make an appearance to avoid provoking Kara’s suspicions.

After all, the human enhancement drug she was developing had almost reached its human trial phase. She would not need to keep up the farce much longer.

Lena appeared for the party dressed as a hippy, with her hair loose and large round sunglasses that hid her eyes. Her outfit was psychedelic and full of bright, sunny colors that couldn’t contrast more with her mood.

Everyone treated her with kid gloves, these days, and Lena let that impression work for her. When she excused herself when it was barely 10:30 PM, nobody seemed all that surprised.

She injected herself with the serum for the first time in November. The shortcomings of the drug sent her to her bed for three days, and she just barely resisted the clamoring in her skull to go to the hospital.

She had considered recruiting human participants. Ultimately, Lena had chosen against it. For one thing, all of the non-disclosure agreements in the world were only semi-effective at preventing news of her new invention from getting out. 

More than confidentiality, however, Adam’s face haunting her dreams kept driving her back to her lab, alone, with a needle in her hand.

She wouldn’t have known that Thanksgiving had arrived, except for a text from Kara inviting her to Thanksgiving dinner at her apartment. She glanced at the text and shut off her phone.

Lena was weak and dehydrated from her last test. There was no chance in hell she was seeing Kara, not in this state. Kara would know something was going on.

She closed her eyes and let the exhaustion pull her into a haze of near-sleep.

_Lena’s eight. She hears the bell ringing, summoning her and Lex to Thanksgiving dinner (she knows she has ten minutes before the servants go in person to escort Lillian and Lionel). _

_She wipes her hands on her shorts and beams at the marshmallow-covered concoction in front of her. She found the recipe in an old cookbook that Paulina had given her before she was fired. She managed to convince Walter, the butler, to buy the ingredients behind her parents’ backs._

_She’s spent the last four hours in the spare kitchen, stirring spices and sugar together with the molten sweet potato to create the decadent sweet potato casserole before her. Lena’s arms hurt. A couple spoonfuls of scalding sweet potato missed their mark in the bowl and instead slipped down her arms, leaving angry red burns._

_Still, all in all, she’s proud of her creation. _

_Lena likes cooking. It’s like chemistry that you get to eat after. She misses Paulina’s lessons. Still, she imagines that her old nanny would have been proud of her, even though she almost slipped up and added salt when she should have added sugar. Lena’s pleased she caught herself before she ruined the entire dish._

_Lena carefully picks up the sides of the casserole dish with oven mitts and tiptoes into the dining room. As she suspected, nobody is there yet. Lex is usually late on principle, and Lionel and Lillian have yet to make their appearance. _

_She sets the dish down on a hot plate at the table and takes her seat at the long, wooden table. Only four places are set at a table that fits at least twelve. Her legs swing from her chair in excitement as she waits for her family to join her._

_Ten minutes later, Lex joins her at the table. Lillian and Lionel follow two minutes after._

_The second Lillian’s eyes settle on Lena, she sucks in a breath. _

_“Lena,” she says harshly. “Why are you not dressed?”_

_Lena glances down at herself, suddenly realizing that in her excitement about her casserole, she has forgotten to comply with the Luthor mandate of always arriving for meals as if attending a state dinner at the White House. She is still wearing her oversized t-shirt and her black shorts covered in smears of food from her cooking. Luckily, Lillian can’t see under the table._

_Lena bites her lip._

_“Get up,” Lillian says sharply. “Come back when you’re presentable.” Lillian waves Lena away as if shooing a pesky fly._

_Fifteen minutes later, after Lena has combed her hair and squeezed herself into a red velvet dress with an over-sized bow, itchy tights, and little black designer slippers, she finds her family downstairs, eating in silence._

_She settles in across from Lex, picking up her fork to dig finally take a bite._

_Her eyes search out her casserole on the table. She can’t find it anywhere. Panic and disappointment swell in equal measure in the pit of her stomach._

_“Didn’t I see something with marshmallows?” she asks in a squeaky voice._

_Lillian gives her a narrow smile. “Yes, but I asked for it to be taken away. I’m not sure why it was served. We can’t be bothered with such slop.”_

_Lena’s eyes settle on her plate. Her stomach rumbles, but she’s not that hungry. Not anymore._  


The first time the serum worked, really worked, was in mid-December. 

Lena hardly knew what to do with the strength surging through her body. She let her chest rise and fall and finally, unable to decide, she punched her desk with all of her strength. The solid white desk immediately split, falling to pieces at her feet.

Adrenaline pulsed through every vein and artery of her body. Her muscles felt infused with power. Lena breathed in deeply, trying to calm herself. She needed to think about this like a scientist.

She was no Supergirl after all, no Guardian. She would not become drunk on her own power. 

“Serum has enabled increased strength,” she said as clearly as her racing heart would allow into a voice recorder. “Subject will now go into the lab to test the qualities of the enhanced strength on several grounds—force, endurance, duration, and control.”

As Lena passed a mirror in the hallway heading to the lab, she caught a glimpse of her eyes—still a piercing, otherworldly blue. 

Lena emerged from the lab four hours later, physically spent. Her eyes had returned to their gentle green hue. 

She should feel ecstatic. Finally, the serum had worked the way it was supposed to. Finally, she had discovered a way to level the playing field between humans and aliens, to bring Supergirl down a notch. Finally, she had found a way to empower the human good guys to take their problems into their own hands instead of turning to otherworld manipulators who used their greater physical strength to accumulate power and influence.

Instead, she just felt empty. 

Lena dressed in designer black jeans, heels, and a slick leather coat and strolled out onto the street, trying to get some fresh air. Christmas music drifted from the shops lining the avenue.

Christmas.

Holed up in her lab, she had forgotten about the holiday. Not that she really cared. Recent Christmases were too painfully wrapped up in her feelings for Kara, and before that…

_She’s four. _

_Garlands of holly and golden statues of dancing angels fill the halls and stairwells of Luthor Manor. Lena wanders around, her eyes wide._

_It’s Christmas. She knows it’s Christmas because the song “Deck the Halls” is wafting throughout the house and red and green are everywhere._

_She buzzes in excitement. She can’t wait to see Santa. Mammy always brings her to see Santa. He always smells like warm cookies and cinnamon, and he smiles at her as he asks her what he wants him to bring her on his magical sleigh._

_He always winks at Mammy, and sure enough, on Christmas morning she finds the trinket she has asked for under the tree that Mammy puts up. _

_She knows that the man who tells her to call him “Father” says that Mammy is gone, and that both Father and the woman who says her name is “Mother” haven’t mentioned Mammy since then. She knows it has been an awful long time since she has seen Mammy. Even so, she knows it like she knows her name is Lena—Mammy would never miss Christmas. Mammy would never forget to take her to see Santa Claus. _

_Lena hears the front door open. She races to it. Instead of Mammy, she sees Mother. _

_“No running,” Mother says. Lena blinks up at her._

_“What do you say?” Mother asks, hardly looking at her._

_“I… I’m sorry,” she murmurs. _

_“I’m sorry, what?” Mother continues._

_“I’m sorry, Mother,” Lena says. Mother gives a stiff nod. _

_Lena stares at her shoes for a few moments, until she has gathered her courage again._

_When she looks up again, Father and Lex have joined her and Mother in the room. _

_“Are we going to see Santa?” she says hopefully, blinking her big green eyes up at the adults and the older boy standing before her._

_Neither Mother nor Father answers her. She glances at Lex, hoping Big Brother will tell her where Santa is._

_Lex glances at Mother. “She believes in Santa,” he says. His voice sounds weird, Lena thinks. _

_Mother smiles, but it isn’t a warm smile, not like Mammy used to give her. It feels a little mean. Still, Lena stares up at her, wide-eyed and hopeful. _

_“Sure, let’s go see Santa,” Mother replies._

_“Yippee!” Lena exclaims before glancing down at her shoes and stopping herself from running. Good girls don’t run. She follows Mother through the house. Mother opens the door to a back room. Her heart pounding, Lena steps through the door._

_She’s going to see Mammy, and Santa. She knows it. She just knows it. Surely Mammy would not miss Christmas. _

_The room is empty. _

_“Where’s Santa?” she asks Mother, trying to hold back her tears. _

_“Silly girl, you honestly believed I was taking you to see Santa? Really, Lex would’ve never fallen for such a thing. Then again, you aren’t made of the same stuff he is. Really, Lena, there’s no such thing as Santa. He’s not real.”_

_Mother closes the door behind Lena. Lena curls up into a ball, staring at the snow falling outside the window. The tears bubble over. _

_Santa isn’t real._

_Mammy is gone._

By Christmas Eve, Lena had drawn up a plan for formal testing of the serum to commence in the new year and deflected approximately two dozen texts and calls from Kara.

“Just a little bit longer,” she reminded herself.

Kara would soon see what she had done. Soon, Kara would be disavowed of the ridiculous notion that it was grief and depression that was keeping Lena from Kara and their friends. Soon, Kara would be disavowed of the ridiculous notion that Lena was a fool to be deceived. 

Lena would save the world in her own right, and she wouldn’t need alien powers to do it.

She spent the next week tweaking the formula, bending over vials and papers and charts. On New Year’s Eve, she turned on the TV for the first time in weeks. 

Supergirl—Kara—stared back at her from the nightly news. She’d done something heroic once again. Lena didn’t know what. She turned off the TV before she could learn if Kara had averted a bomb threat or saved a school bus full of children or rescued a cat trapped up a tree.

Lena only knew that rage and hurt were bubbling in her chest, threatening to spill over.

She glanced at the vial. With a steady hand, she picked up the vial and attached it to a needle. Barely breathing, Lena injected the serum into her arm and felt clarity and strength flow into her as her eyes turned piercingly silver-blue.

It wasn’t hard to find a crime in process. She easily beat back the would-be assailant. The grateful woman stared up at her. 

“Thank you!” the would-be victim gasped, clutching at Lena as if the other woman were her life raft. “I’m so–– wait? Lena Luthor?”

Her surprise pushed out any sense of triumph from Lena’s body. Lena quickly turned and retreated down the alley. 

A whooshing sound stopped her in her tracks. “Lena!” Supergirl called. Lena looked up at Kara, and Supergirl stumbled back as she met Lena’s changed eyes.

“What happened to you, Lena?” Supergirl asked, her own blue eyes widening. “What did you do?”

“The only thing I could… Kara,” Lena said quietly, before running off into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> The ending was meant to be ambiguous, but as far as I stand none of this is to imply that Lena has turned "evil." She is simply hurt, isolated, and trying to make sense of it using her most accessible tool: science.
> 
> Also, I wasn't quite sure how to tag this because I definitely ship Supercorp as a couple but the story didn't necessarily define whether the feelings between the two in this story are romantic or friendship. That's why I decided to tag both varieties of relationship.
> 
> Hoping the actual show brings more happiness and resolution! 
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts :)


End file.
